Why some question effectiveness of My Safe Florida Home grant program

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Only about a third of those who get in the program’s pipeline in getting the required home inspection end up getting the state money.

• Florida’s home-hardening grant programs have unclaimed funds despite previous high demand.
• State data shows only half of grant recipients have seen a reduction in their property insurance premiums.
• Complex application rules and upfront costs for homeowners are significant hurdles to participation.
• Despite mixed results on insurance savings, some lawmakers support continuing the program for its safety benefits.

My Safe Florida Home and My Safe Florida Condominium Pilot may sound like free money to fix up your home, but the hurdles have unclaimed money lying around and raising larger questions about the effectiveness of the popular program.

The avalanche of applications for state grants to help cover the cost of hardening homes against hurricane winds has thinned significantly — slots to get in the pipeline for home and condo improvement cash lie unclaimed, months after the opportunity opened.

Previously, the popularity of My Safe Florida Home and My Safe Florida Condominium Pilot had shut down the application period within weeks, if not days.

Now, some of the results from three years of doling out grants for home improvements $10,000 at a time for single-family homes and $175,000 at a time for condo associations have led to questions about how effective the state money has been.

The total state appropriation for the single-family home part of the program since 2022 is approaching $1 billion. And, even though it was conceived as an effort to bring down property insurance premiums, state data shows that just half of the recipients of some $384,000 in state grants have documented premium drops because of the state-sponsored home hardening.

Added to that, only about a third of those who get in the program’s pipeline — getting the required home inspection to pinpoint eligible home projects — end up getting the state money.

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Still, state Rep. Chip LaMarca, R-Lighthouse Point, says he’s ready to help get new funding passed this year for the My Safe Florida Home program as he did during the last legislative session. It’s worthwhile, he said, even if the results on lowering premiums have been somewhat underwhelming.

“The safety of the residents in that home is much better,” he said, noting that impact-resistant windows the program will pay for could also lower electric bills. “The program is definitely worth continuing and expanding.”

One answer to the insurance crisis

My Safe Florida Home was started in 2006 but was dormant for years. It received a fresh infusion of cash, however, in 2022 when the state was facing an insurance market meltdown. Insurance companies were going insolvent, and the remaining ones were raising rates by double-digit percentages annually as Floridians paid the highest insurance premiums in the country.

My Safe Florida Home sought to improve homes’ insurability, reducing insurers’ risk with home improvements. A condo program to do the same was added in 2024.

But the enthusiasm may be gone: Getting the money is not as simple as filling out an application and it requires some up-front costs, even for low-income recipients who don’t have to spend $1 of their own money to get the $2 the state will match.

Dawn Munera, president of Pierpointe V Condo III in Pembroke Pines, is among those who got in line for the money. Munera said she was told by state officials that her association’s 36-year-old buildings were on the “short list” for the money, only to find subsequent rules excluded them. Legislation passed in 2024 restricted grants to those condos taller than two stories, knocking her association out. Munera says other rules will exclude many more, even the high rises.

“They made it very, very restrictive,” Munera said. “There are too many factors that don’t make sense.”

One of them, for example, requires that all windows in the condo association are part of the common property, Munera said. That would exclude most associations in South Florida, she added.

“They would have to amend their bylaws,” she said.

A multi-step process

For the individual homeowner seeking state home improvement grants, there are several steps after applying to get the free, required state-approved inspection. After the inspection report is complete, and it identifies qualifying projects at a homesteaded house, the homeowner applies for the reimbursement grant.

Once approved, the homeowner selects a contractor. After the work is completed and payment to the contractor has been made, the homeowner gathers the required documents to get the state grant that can be as much as $10,000.

Roof replacement can easily run more than that, it turns out.

Improvements not uniformly decreasing premiums

The track record of My Safe Florida Home was the focus of an Oct. 15 Florida House Banking & Insurance Subcommittee hearing. Republican state Rep. Hillary Cassel of Dania Beach noted the state’s appropriation for the home-hardening effort was approaching $1 billion.

Insurance declarations that the homeowners provide before and after the work is done have added up to 20,000 homes with a premium reduction and almost 20,000 more that have seen their premium stay the same, increase, or the state doesn’t have information about the post-project premium.

“Knowing that we spent almost a billion dollars, passed extensive reforms for the insurance industry to try to stabilize this market, can you provide any explanations as to why we’re not seeing reductions across the board?” Cassel said.

Steve Fielder, director of My Safe Florida Home, said that the total appropriation is far greater than what’s gone into replacing roofs, installing windows and strengthening roof-wall connections. Only about $384,000 has gone out the door for grants, he said.

“The difference being between those two numbers … there are people who we have awarded grants and we’re waiting for them to finish their work, so we don’t know yet what their savings will be,” Fielder said. “And then we still have money we have not awarded. … It’s not quite as dire as the billion (spent) just yet, but your point is still valid.”

Financial hurdles stopping some

The drop off from 122,057 getting the initial home inspection to just about a third of those homeowners — 40,719 — getting reimbursed for eligible projects concerned Democratic state Rep. Marie Woodson of Hollywood.

The latest iteration of the program was focused on low- and moderate-income homeowners, Fielder explained.

“There are a lot of homeowners who realize, after the fact, that they couldn’t, maybe afford to do the work that was being recommended because they didn’t have the money over and above the $10,000 that was needed,” Fielder said. “That’s a big factor.”

Anne Geggis is the insurance reporter at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach her at ageggis@gannett.com. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today